On May 18, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum that couldn't be more critical to restoring public trust in government.

For the 2014 budget process, the office advised agencies to include information about how they plan to evaluate the effectiveness of their programs and link their disbursements to evidence. The office said a commitment to using evidence would make approval of budget requests more likely.

Could this be the coming of age of “evidence-based policy making”?

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The Pew Charitable Trusts is now working to spread the Washington model to other states through an initiative it calls Results First. “There's a real potential in this approach to deal with the polarization in the country,” says Gary VanLandingham, the director of Results First. “At the end of the day whether you want big or little government, you want government to do things that work.”

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